a dead out that is stumping me

[danno]

Here is what I found in one of my dead outs.   
They did not starve.  not many dead with there head in cells.  They never moved up.   They still had honey in the corners of bottom frames and several full frames of honey in the top deep.     No sign of brood disease, mites or dysentary. hives were treated for these early last fall   A  large quanity of bee's in a pile all dead on the bottom board like they just fell over backwards out of the cluster.   This is a great location up against a barn with full sun when it shines and no wind.  Tops were insulated and vented in my usual way so moisture is not a problem.  5 other colonies right next to it are all thriving.  I read the article on trechial mites in the ABJ last night and thought this kinda fits but my mite treatment should have taken care of this.    There were 2 capped queen cells with larva in them.  Its hard to tell how old they were as there was no other brood around them. 

[David LaFerney]

I'm going to make a completely unqualified guess:  The queen failed for some reason, and the weather turned cold causing the emergency supercedure cells to  chill and die.

What happens to a hive if the queen dies too late to be replaced?

[Scadsobees]

I had a situation a few years ago where I killed a few of my queens too late for them to be mated, and while I think one of the worthless virgin queens did survive till spring, the others died off.

I'd guess that is what happened in your case too.  They tried raising a queen but the cold got them first, I think they probably have less will to live without her majesty. Plus they couldn't move when the future of the hive was locked up in those 2 queen cells.
Why and how she died?  Well that is probably a mystery never to be solved.  Probably a heart attack or something.

Rick

[danno]

Thanks rick
Just the fact that they didn't die in cluster caught me.  Like I said it was like they just died and fell to the bottom. I have 3 down out of 24.   If I can get through feb with these numbers i will be happy.

[tillie]

I had a hive that died this way too and I think they had a weak or no queen going into winter and just couldn't get it together.  They all died near the front of the hive on several levels and had plenty of stores in the hive.

BTW, bees can't have heart attacks because they don't have a heart!  Their "blood" is liquid throughout their body and doesn't flow through one organ as we have in the human body.

LT in Atlanta

[danno]

so far i have lost 7 or about 25%.   I read a article in ABJ this past weekend that brought my thoughts back to this colony.  They had a few drones mixed in the pile.   The article stated that if a colony doesn't push there drone out in fall they have lost there queen or she is failing.   Good info and something I will look for next fall.